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The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children

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Amazon.com: The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children: 9780470408155: Ladson-Billings, Gloria: Books

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This is a program I am hoping to use this year as part of multimodal approach to literacy.

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Book Creator - Love Learning - Book Creator app

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Teachers love it. Students love it. Book Creator is the simplest, most inclusive way to create content in the classroom.

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Blog about multimodal learning, the benefits, and ideas for the classroom.

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4 min reading time

Most corporate learning strategies start small. Typically, it's a few text-based courses with the occasional image or two. But, as you gain more learners, and become more confident in your training process, it's essential to branch out and consider creating courses that embrace different learning formats and ways to learn. This is where multimodal learning comes in.

Used to enhance the learning experience and increase engagement, multimodal learning recommends the use of different modes to train. It's a helpful methodology to memorize when creating your eLearning content.

What is multimodal learning?

Multimodal learning suggests that when a number of our senses - visual, auditory, kinaesthetic - are being engaged during learning, we understand and remember more. By combining these modes, learners experience learning in a variety of ways to create a diverse learning style.

For example, let's imagine an organization is onboarding a new sales hire, training them on their product, and has decided to take a multimodal approach. The first part of the course could be text-based, reading an overview document or slides about what the product they are going to be selling does. Then, they're enrolled in a webinar that visually and aurally explains what the product does. From here, they're requested to do a 'sample' demo via video to get them involved and active in the process. And, finally, they have a feedback session with an instructor to hear about their progress and help them further their learning.

Types of multimodal learning

There are four main methods of multimodal learning; visual, auditory, reading and writing and kinesthetic (VARK). Some experts believe that people prefer one over the other; for example they have a preference for visual learning, however the evidence to back this up is sparse.

That being said, VARK is still a valuable model to keep top-of-mind when trying to create diverse learning content to engage your learners.

1. Visual learning

Visual learning involves the use of graphs, infographics, cartoons and illustrations, videos, artwork, flowcharts, and diagrams - anything that primarily stimulates your learners eyes.
Techniques like color coding information, using different fonts and labelling important points with stickers are all part of visual learning too.

2. Auditory learning

Auditory learning is mostly concerned with what we listen to. For an organization delivering training, this can come in the form of a podcast, webinar, audiobook, or an instructor talking to learners face-to-face. Group discussions or debates on the topics covered can all form part of auditory learning.

3. Kinesthetic learning

Kinesthetic learning gets learners active; it can involve site visits, demonstrations and multimedia presentations. It's often a combination of several types of learning together; for example, making a video combines visual, auditory and kinesthetic skills; the different methods of multimodal learning don't operate in a vacuum - they intersect with each other.

If we think back to our sales onboarding example above, kinesthetic learning can be used to test a learner too, as our sales rep had to make a sample demo video as part of their assessment.

4. Reading and writing

Reading and writing - the type of learning we're most familiar with. Here, text-based courses, PDF's, documents, books, and eBooks are often used. Additionally, most written exams or assignments, like true and false or multiple choice questions, come under this bracket too.

How to create a multimodal approach to learning

1. Add different media to your courses

The first step with multimodal learning is to simply dive in and plan how you can add more modes to your courses. When you're creating your course think outside the box and start to use different formats, like video, slides, and audio.

We suggest you start small by repurposing the content you already have and taking advantage of resources outside of your organization, like YouTube videos and podcasts on the subject of focus. From here, you can then start creating your own videos, slides, audio, and interactive learning sessions.

Also, invest in an LMS that supports a wide range of content formats, including Word, PowerPoint, PDF, video and audio.

2. You can use blended learning techniques

Blended learning is an effective training technique that combines face-to-face training with online instruction through your LMS. It gives you all the advantages of interacting directly with learners in a classroom environment along with the convenience of eLearning.

With blended learning, you can hold a live training session with a group of learners, post some extra resources for them to your LMS, and then assign a task or exam to ensure they understood the topic completely. This allows you to easily document and report on who's taken the training session and how effective it was.

3. Learners can do multimodal assignments

You can take advantage of a variety of different means of assessment when you're training through multimodal learning. Challenge your learners to create a video or audio project and upload it to your LMS, give them instructions on a personal essay to write and post, or set up a quiz for them to take.

Setting multimodal assignments lets learners get creative, and encourages them to use different parts of their brain. Cognitive Learning Theory suggests that when learners are actively involved in their own learning, they retain more of their training, so multimodal assignments are likely to create better results.

4. Providing feedback through different media with your LMS

Occasionally, it's not possible for managers to give their teams feedback in person. This may be because some of your team work remotely or are often offsite, or perhaps you have some general feedback you need to provide to a large group and don't have the capacity to speak to everyone individually.

In this instance, recording a short video and posting it to your LMS can be a great solution. Providing feedback through email is risky, it's likely to be misinterpreted or misunderstood as the tone is impersonal. With a video, learners can hear your encouraging tone of voice and see your relaxed body language; and they'll understand that your feedback is constructive and well meant.

Do your training sessions mainly stimulate one or two of the senses, or do you attempt to engage your learners in a variety of different ways? Let us know what works for you in the comments.

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Multimodal Learning: Engaging Your Learner's Senses

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Most corporate learning strategies start small. Typically, it's a few text-based courses with the occasional image or two. But, as you gain more learners,

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A link to the top 50 Multicultural picture books.

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The 50 Best Multicultural Picture Books Of 2020 - Colours of Us

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Browse our extensive list of this year’s best multicultural picture books! Featuring characters of different ethnicities. Suitable for ages 0-10.

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A blog on how to incorporate funds of knowledge into the early childhood classroom.

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Building connections with your students and their families aren't always at the top of your teaching to-do list, but it must be. Children with strong home-to-school connections thrive at school, and as preschool teachers, we can lay the foundation for a positive school experience for our students by making this a priority. Using the Funds of Knowledge framework is a great place to start this process.

What are Funds of Knowledge?

Funds of Knowledge are collections of knowledge based on cultural practices that are a part of families' inner culture, work experience, or their daily routine. It is the knowledge and expertise that students and their family members have because of their roles in their families, communities, and culture.

Funds of Knowledge can include learning how to make Gnocchi from scratch or keep score at a curling match. It could be quilting or spinning wool into yarn. It could be how to fix a car, care for a crying baby, or prepare a Seder. What makes using these Funds of Knowledge so powerful is that it is culturally relevant to students. It brings more diversity into your classroom for students that don't relate culturally. It offers teachers a chance to become researchers of their students' lives. This allows us to better connect with our students' home cultures and ultimately act as a bridge when needed. And it creates a deeper connection to learning materials and classroom activities for our students.

As teachers, seeking out these Funds of Knowledge offers us a chance to see a more complex view of the families we serve and develop deeper relationships with them, which can be harder to do when working cross-culturally but brings great benefits to the students and our teaching practice.

This concept was developed by educational researchers Luis Moll, Cathy Amanti, Deborah Neff, and Norma Gonzalez. You can read more about the development of this concept and the research that went into it here.

Who Has Funds of Knowledge?

Every member of the school community. Your students, co-workers, and students' families.

How Can I Incorporate Funds Of Knowledge Into My Early Childhood Classroom?

The study linked above gives a wonderful example of how a teacher used one child's summer experience in Mexico to teach the class about candy making. It is clear, however, that these weren't preschoolers they were teaching. For our purposes, I will simplify the concept for practical use in early childhood. In an early childhood education class, this is how I would suggest implementing a Funds of Knowledge approach:

If possible, make home visits. I know that home visits are not possible for many of you. I have heard from so many teachers that visits are not permitted for one reason or another. If you are not able to, have parent nights where only a limited number of parents come. Then repeat the process with options for daytime and nighttime meetings if possible. This will make it more accessible for parents who work shift work or who can not get childcare. Use these meetings to get to know the parents.

Invite parents/ caregivers into your classroom to share their talents and expertise. This can be hard because parents often do not believe they have any. This is where knowing the parents helps. You know that one mom is a firefighter; ask her to come in and talk about fire safety. You know, one dad makes the best cookies; ask him to make them with the children. Most parents will come in if you ask. The worst they can say is no.

Find ways for parents to share their Funds of Knowledge outside of classroom hours. Perhaps a family art project to make a quilt square that a student's grandmother will sew together on her own time. The teacher can then incorporate that into a lesson and keep the connection alive.

Be open to students who want to share their Funds of Knowledge as well. Many in our age group (2-5) may not be interested, but allowing children to share has great benefits like building confidence. It offers them a chance to shine and share something significant with their peers and teachers. Some children, especially those in underrepresented groups, may not often feel seen.

Use the knowledge you have gathered to create culturally relevant experiences for your students. You don't have to rely on classroom visitors to do this.

Build on these connections in your classroom over and over again. At the playdough table, then talk about making those special cookies with Hailey's dad. When you are scooping out beans in the sensory bin, talk about cooking beans with Jaden's mom... keep it going!

Use the knowledge you learn from the families both with visits/ parent meetings and when they come in to share as a tool for connecting with their child. Remember those small significant bits of knowledge about each student's family, of course, allow you to better connect with each one of your students. Of course, understanding where your students, even very young ones, are coming from changes how we teach.

In this post, I've simplified the approach coined by Luis Moll, Cathy Amanti, Deborah Neff, and Norma Gonzalez for you to break it down for an early childhood environment. The overall goal is for the teacher to learn from the student and family, connect, and then use that knowledge to create a more authentic learning environment for the child and the class as a whole.

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How To Use Funds Of Knowledge in your Classroom and Create Better Connections

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Funds of knowledge approach allow teachers to learn about their students, student's culture, and family experience to better connect and teach.

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Ideas on how to access students funds of knowledge. 

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A short prezi on sociocultural theory and its use in the classroom.

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Developmental Theories and Effective Teaching Socio-Cultural Theory Finding ways to better understand how students learn and develop is one way to enhance teaching methods. Applying developmental theory when designing lessons and activities will help to create a more effective

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A short clip on the why behind critical literacy in education.

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A short video on how children were inspired and empowered to learn and make a change!

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This article focuses on building children's global connections and with an emphasis on identity and taking action.

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A study on three young black children and their identity development at school.

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Interpreting the Images in Children's Books

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Interpreting the Images in Children's Books

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This article ties in community, picture books, and art work with a Funds of Knowledge lens.

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Interpreting the Images in a Picture Book

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These are a selection of  critical literacy questions to ask when reading a book.  

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Exploring Names through Multicultural Literature

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Exploring Names through Multicultural Literature

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I found this article during my research for my literature review. It has some resources for teachers to use in classrooms K-8 that help build multicultural communities!

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This is a link to a blog that contains different ideas that focus on building identity in the classroom! I have already used some in my class this year.

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For a final culminating project for Kindergarten Specialist CONT 923 through Queen’s University , we were asked to created a unit plan that ...